Who (Day 381)

who gets 

to have less 

I don’t want to 

think about 

who gets to 

have more

who stays or 

leaves who is born 

or is lost

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: William McKinley campaign poster, 

ca. 1895–1900 US Library of Congress

Reclaimed (Day 353)

Reclaimed by the wind

this hot air, knocked down

hard hand in mine, 

lifeless rain leaks from 

the clouds, faceless seconds 

trickling down 

the slopes of a slow hour,

snowcaps slipping into the sea,

descending the ladder of souls,

while fertile land grows arid

in our climbing sun’s vice-like grip.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: 12019/Pixabay

Missing our days (Day 350)

Growing older, is it 

as often about regret 

as it seems?

Nostalgia like an ache, 

missing our days and

our dreams because 

we cannot remember 

how to live 

the way children do? 

Trust me, 

it’s harder 

and easier than 

you know, spending 

your days missing 

other days, when 

all along your roots 

are cracking 

granite, seeking 

sustenance, sinking 

deep into your loamy soil, 

until you are 

bound

to your own time. And 

maybe that is the definition 

of wisdom.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: MaxPixel

This is how history works (Day 345)

This is how history works.

Disgusting, irresponsible 

requests that start to sound 

strange to your ear, 

after the fourth

or fourteenth 

or forty-thousandth time

you hear them repeated.

Men and women, reading

aloud from storybooks,

not reading what needs

to be read, deciding 

things best left undecided 

by anyone but God 

(or whatever you prefer 

to call the great Mystery),

such as, “When does life start?”

or “What is the meaning of art?”

There are no set boundaries,

no term limits on genius,

where literature,

or music, or architecture 

are concerned.

Imagine, then, the absurdity

of government, among a people

unwilling to lift up 

their voices to demand justice 

for their neighbors, 

their friends, 

their fellow citizens.

Look: They cannot figure out

how to feel about a painting 

of a Campbell’s Soup can,

or Crayola’s new crayon colors, 

or whether Disco should have died.

That is how history works:

It is a beautiful and flawed

choose-your-own-adventure 

tale, and we must find a way 

to decide.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), by Andy Warhol

via Wikimedia Commons

Roy G. Biv, Pt. 2: Orange (Day 320)

The country awoke from its autumnal haze

Exurbs were elated, the suburbs unfazed.

As an old southern dynasty from New York City

Moved into the White House, we drew the world’s pity

Roy hit the ground running, his pen charged with ink,

Signed executive orders faster than he could think.

And the apathy that had infected the land

Dissolved in the face of repeals and bans.

Soon rumors arose of a modern Resistance.

And pussy grabbed back, despite the insistence,

Of a bunch of old White men on Capitol Hill,

That society’s downfall began with The Pill.

In blue-collar cities, and hungry coal towns,

Where the people believed that they’d been let down

By a government in which they barely took part— 

Folks insisted Roy had their best interests at heart.

Still, a question tormented those skilled at detection:

Had Roy slept with the Russians to win the election?

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Note: This is Part Two of a seven-part series. 

You can read Part One here.

His Rendezvous (Day 310)

In the end he was quickly granted his 

rendezvous   saying little   connecting among 

the ghosts of school-room conversations after 

his charade of rochambo crushed the bodies 

of those children with their knowing eyes.

Little by little we begin to break ranks   

mothers unable to restrain us with the old 

dreams we left behind in their wombs   

fingering our superstitious thoughts like prayer 

beads and furrowing our brows when we realize 

none of our messages have been opened   

none received. 

And yet many linger in the hard winter sun

waiting to see   knowing that men such as 

these always do themselves in by 

murdering what they have already won 

during a time when they believe they haven’t.

Note: This poem was inspired by a few random lines

of The Complete Essays, by Michel de Montaigne, 

which I chopped, scrambled, and tinkered with for

an enjoyable hour or two.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image based on a photo by Gage Skidmore

Secret Roads (Day 288)

Trickling valleys slide

toward the water, dark 
as cedars standing 

sentinel, concealing 

secret roads 
and urgent passageways, 
branches 

calming the nervous, 

fog-brightened night.

Here, joy turns 
to wonder, grief 
to contemplation. 

New growth, a tender 
haze of green, emerges
before the forest’s 
detached gaze, 
in stillness,
ancient consolations.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: StockSnap

How to Starve Your Demons, or Why I Stopped Looking at Social Media After the 2016 Election (Day 286)

How to Starve Your Demons, or 

Why I Stopped Looking at 

Social Media After the 2016 Election

When I look at you,

peacefulness recedes.

The turquoise seas dry,

revealing their soft

underbellies, which

harden and crackle, 

a vast desert of 

shattered tempered glass. 

When I look at you,

fragile as I’ve grown,

something in my heart

stirs—awakening

a sense of dread—that

lives apart from me,

a burning creature

eternal and dark,

who crept in and stayed

after he arrived.

So I endeavor

to starve my demon

by never looking,

even askance, at 

you, summoning, and

ever beckoning

concealed in your blue 

like a false hero.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe's 
"Descent into the Maelstrom" 

by Harry Clarke (1889–1931), 

published in 1919 (via Wikimedia)

Moderate Cruelty (Day 280)

Tepid, aglow with the cuprous 

sweat of self-loathing, you 

resort to moderate cruelty 

again and again

that was always your way

of containing the steady trickle

of commentary—expert at everything

you do—that accrues 

in the pit of your stomach

day by day and no matter where

you look you are insensate 

to the shards of beauty 

that slice and snag your skin

with every blundering step you take

unable to understand that there 

are miles of possibility

at your feet

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: White House dot gov

Dark-eyed boys (Day 277)

two dark-eyed boys

their father 

at the window parting 

red curtains  kick a ball 

where the greenest grass 

grows  watered by tears 

she cried when she kissed them 

goodbye  there  then

all she could hope for was 

a warm day  lamenting that  

during the rain  they had 

not been able to play outdoors

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image:sasint

The Noun’s Rosy Glow (Day 246)

In the noun’s rosy glow,

legs stretched out 

in front of me, adjective 

minnows kissing my toes

under the cool gaze

of a tribe of water-spiders,

I lean back into the warmth

of an adverb, the one 

I’d been eyeing since 

we arrived almost 

a week ago. Bill Z. tells me

I shouldn’t run with such

a fast crowd, but I disagree. 

How would he know

of the pillowy comfort 

of the passive tense,

he who never dangled

with a participle in his life?

No, give me my sparkling

modifiers, my lazy verbs,

and I’ll leave the prickly

bits to him, standard-bearer

of brevity, killer of favorites,

unquestionable conqueror

of loquaciousness. 

In honor of William K Zinsser

to whom I promise to revise and edit this poem 

when (if?) the 1462 days end.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Pexels

Maybe We Are (Day 236)

Maybe we 

are not all 

the same. 

Maybe 

some of us 

are upside 

down 

or inside 

out. 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Free-photos

Indulgence No.4 (Day 233)

it helps

to flood the stage 

with protest

like hearing every side 

from the wide clear skies  

of my late 

summer 

autumn  

falling  we went out 

undisguised  sweated  

and when 

we came home 

feeling angry  vile  

riled like 

a snake   

an unexpected freight train   

like the days 

of warm rain beyond 

the bruise-green clouds   

we had a precedent 

for the day 

of the storm 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Free-Photos

After the Bookstore Closed (Day 230)

about an hour after 

our local bookstore closed

the sky darkened

to green   the wind came   sideways   

from nowhere   thunder 

racked my house and slam-banged 

around   an old man grumbling   

on a brittle winter day   so like 

human beings   their cultures gathered 

around clouds of voices   raising heat 

and ugliness   the sounds distress me   

my body reflecting   not just words but 

the humid heavy breath of the street   

blowsy   a little hot   they keep saying   

our bright star is exploding   our world 

set ablaze   eyes like deep pools 

of wisdom   and fascist fists are

pummeling my heart   if I can fight this 

I might stop falling into the jade sky   

and wake up warm and safe and dry 

but   on the other hand   we could be 

staring down the inscrutable

barrel of a millennial storm

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: terren